64 The Irish Naturalist. 



Prof. T. Johnson exhibited a fertile specimen of Streblonema simplex, 

 (Crn.) Holmes and Batt, a brown alga discovered by the Cronans in 1867 

 on the north-west coast of France, subsequently by E. M. Holmes on 

 the south coast of England, and by himselfin September, 1891, at Kilkee 

 (Co. Clare), and at Castletown-Berehaven (Bantry Bay) in May, 1893. The 

 species is figured by Holmes in the Journal of Botany for 1887 (Tab. 274, f. 

 161). S. simplex forms small dark brown patches on Codium tomentosum, 

 into which it sends creeping root-like filaments. The sporangi (plurilo- 

 cular only known) are stalked, conical, obtuse, and confined to the basal 

 part of the epiphytic tufts. 



Dr. M'Weeney showed a number of curious pear-shaped hyaline 

 structureless bodies which he had seen in the body cavity and muscles 

 of a dead water- flea that had occurred in the sediment of Lough Dan 

 water collected for analytical purposes last December. The greater part 

 of the animal was filled up with these bodies, the regularity of whose 

 shape and their tendency to be connected in pairs strongly suggested an 

 organic origin. Their length was about 10-12 microns, their outline 

 highly refractive, their narrow ends frequently united. He suggested 

 that they might possibly be spores of some species of parasitic protozoon, 

 and be comparable with the " pseudonavicellse " of Gregarines and the 

 pole-capsules of Myxosporidia. Numerous species of the latter group 

 have recently been described, chiefly by Thelohan, as living in water- 

 fleas, and these spores might possibly prove to belong to one of them. 



Mr. DuERDEN exhibited specimens and sections of a new species of 

 Zoanthus from the Bay of Bengal. The species is closely allied to Z. soa'alus, 

 Ellis, which is only known from the West Indies. The polyps in the 

 species exhibited are club-shaped when contracted, and grow in clusters, 

 the buds springing from the narrow bases of the polyps themselves. The 

 body wall is .smooth, and in some so transparent that the gonads and 

 mesenteries can be seen through. The ectoderm is vacuolated, and has 

 a " cuticula" on the outside, of the same nature as mesoglcea. This, along 

 with the brown cuticle, is very dendriform in appearance. In this 

 character and also in the basal canals of the mesenteries the species 

 differs from its ally Z. sociatus. 



Mr. M'ArdlE exhibited a fertile specimen of Scapania aspera, Muller 

 and Bennett, which he collected in some quantity in the oak-wood, near 

 Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan ; he also gathered the plant sparingly on Slieve 

 Glah, a small mountain near Cavan, in October, 1893. These are the first 

 Irish stations recorded for this liverwort, which is an addition to our 

 flora. Mr. W. H. Pearson, who verified the Cavan specimens, collected 

 it on Tower Hill, Abergele, Denbighshire ; it is also recorded from several 

 localities in England and on the continent (Sweden, Switzerland, Ger- 

 many, Austria, and Italy.) Mr. M'Ardle also exhibited an excellent 

 figure of the plant by Mr. Pearson, published in the Journal of Botany, vol. 

 xxx., p. 353, tab. 329, December, 1892, and mounted specimens showing 

 the habit of growth of the plant. 



Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. 



January 16th.— The President (Mr. Wm. Swanston, F.G.S.) in the 

 chair. The following papers were read : — Relative Antiquity of Rath, 

 Cromleac, and Tumulus, as evidenced by some remains near Dromore, 

 Co. Down, by John M. Dickson; Pre-historic Forts and Raths in the 

 City and Vicinity of Belfast, by Francis Joseph Bigger; Notes on 

 Forts in the Townland of Greenagh, near Downpatrick, by John 

 Russell, C.E. 



